Microsoft Corporation, leading developer of personal-computer software systems and applications. The company also publishes books and multimedia titles, offers e-mail services, and sells electronic game systems, computer peripherals (input/output devices), and portable media players. It has sales offices throughout the world. In addition to its main research and development centre at its corporate headquarters in Redmond, Washington, U.S., Microsoft has opened research labs in Cambridge, England (1997); Beijing, China (1998); Aachen, Germany (2003); Sadashivnagar, Bangalore, India (2005); Cairo, Egypt (2006); Cambridge, Massachusetts (2008); Herzliyya, Israel (2011); and New York, New York (2012).

Founding and early growth

In 1975 Bill Gates and Paul G. Allen, two boyhood friends from Seattle, converted BASIC, a popular mainframe computer programming language, for use on an early personal computer (PC), the Altair. Shortly afterward, Gates and Allen founded Microsoft, deriving the name from the words microcomputer and software. During the next few years, they refined BASIC and developed other programming languages. In 1980 International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) asked Microsoft to produce the essential software, or operating system, for its first personal computer, the IBM PC. Microsoft purchased an operating system from another company, modified it, and renamed it MS-DOS (Microsoft Disk Operating System). MS-DOS was released with the IBM PC in 1981. Thereafter, most manufacturers of personal computers licensed MS-DOS as their operating system, generating vast revenues for Microsoft; by the early 1990s it had sold more than 100 million copies of the program and defeated rival operating systems such as CP/M, which it displaced in the early 1980s, and later IBM OS/2. Microsoft deepened its position in operating systems with Windows, a graphical user interface whose third version, released in 1990, gained a wide following. By 1993, Windows 3.0 and its subsequent versions were selling at a rate of one million copies per month, and nearly 90 percent of the world’s PCs ran on a Microsoft operating system. In 1995 the company released Windows 95, which for the first time fully integrated MS-DOS with Windows and effectively matched in ease of use Apple Computer’s Mac OS. It also became the leader in productivity software such as word-processing and spreadsheet programs, outdistancing longtime rivals Lotus and WordPerfect in the process.

Microsoft dramatically expanded its electronic publishing division, created in 1985 and already notable for the success of its multimedia encyclopaedia, Encarta. It also entered the information services and entertainment industries with a wide range of products and services, most notably the Microsoft Network and MSNBC (a joint venture with the National Broadcasting Company, a major American television network).

As a result, by the mid-1990s Microsoft, which became a publicly owned corporation in 1986, had become one of the most powerful and profitable companies in American history. It consistently earned profits of 25 cents on every sales dollar, an astonishing record. In the company’s 1996 fiscal year, it topped $2 billion in net income for the first time, and its unbroken string of profits continued, even during the Great Recession of 2008–09 (its net income had grown to more than $14 billion by fiscal year 2009). However, its rapid growth in a fiercely competitive and fast-changing industry spawned resentment and jealousy among rivals, some of whom complained that the company’s practices violated U.S. laws against unfair competition. Microsoft and its defenders countered that, far from stifling competition and technical innovation, its rise had encouraged both and that its software had consistently become less expensive and more useful. A U.S. Justice Department investigation concluded in 1994 with a settlement in which Microsoft changed some sales practices that the government contended enabled the company to unfairly discourage OS customers from trying alternative programs. The following year the Justice Department successfully challenged Microsoft’s proposed purchase of Intuit Inc., the leading maker of financial software for the PC.

Partly because of its stunning success in PC software, Microsoft was slow to realize the commercial possibilities of network systems and the Internet. In 1993 it released Windows NT, a landmark program that tied disparate PCs together and offered improved reliability and network security. Sales were initially disappointing, but by 1996 Windows NT was being hailed as the likely standard for PC networking, quickly surpassing Novell’s NetWare in market share. Microsoft did not move into Internet software until a new venture, Netscape Communications Corp., had introduced Navigator, a Web browser program that simplified the once-arcane process of navigating the World Wide Web. In a violent change of course, Microsoft quickly developed its own browser, Internet Explorer, made it free, and moved aggressively to persuade computer makers and Internet service providers to distribute it exclusively. By 1996 Microsoft was bundling Explorer with Windows OS and had begun the process of integrating Explorer directly into Windows. In response, Netscape accused Microsoft of violating its 1995 consent decree and sued; those efforts helped to persuade the U.S. Department of Justice to reopen a broad investigation of Microsoft.

In 1999, following a trial that lasted 30 months, a judge found Microsoft in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act and ordered the breakup of the company. In 2001 an appeals court overturned the breakup order but still found the company guilty of illegally trying to maintain a monopoly. The company’s legal woes continued in 2004: the European Union (EU) levied the largest fine in the organization’s history, €497.2 million ($611 million), in retaliation for what were described as Microsoft’s near-monopoly practices. In February 2008 the EU imposed an even higher fine, €899 million ($1.35 billion), on the company for having defied the EU’s 2004 antitrust decision against Microsoft for illegally bundling multimedia software with its Windows operating system to the exclusion of competitors.

Entry into the gaming and mobile phone market

In 2001 Microsoft released the Xbox, an electronic game console that quickly captured second place in the video gaming market. In 2002 Microsoft launched Xbox Live, a broadband gaming network for its consoles. A more powerful gaming console, the Xbox 360, was released in 2005. In an intensely competitive market, where the Xbox faced strong pressure from the Nintendo Wii and SonyPlayStation, Microsoft struggled through the years to make consistent profits from its console. For example, in 2009 the company cut the price of the Xbox 360 Elite by as much as 25 percent in order to pick up market share. The move was successful; by 2010 the Xbox 360 was the most-used game console in the American home. But at the same time, the price cuts also led to a 6 percent drop in revenue in Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices Division (EDD).

Other EDD products also struggled. The Zune family of portable media players introduced in 2006 failed to challenge the market dominance of Apple’s iPod. The Windows Mobile OS, used in smartphones made by a variety of vendors, including HTC, LG, Motorola, and Samsung, trailed in market share in the United States behind Research in Motion’s BlackBerry and Apple’s iPhone. In 2009 Microsoft ceased publishing online and disc versions of its Encarta encyclopaedia, but its dictionary of the same name was still available online.

Further developments in Windows OS

Microsoft began planning a major replacement for all of its operating systems in 2001. The project, code-named Longhorn, encountered numerous delays, in part because of efforts to address the public’s growing concern with computer security and consumers’ desire for PCs to have greater integration with a full range of entertainment equipment within the modern electronic home. The company started over, and the new operating system, renamed Vista, was released to other software developers late in 2006 and to the general public in 2007. Like most new operating systems, Vista met with initial problems involving incompatibilities with older computer peripherals. More problematic for the new operating system was its “bloated” structure, which required a very fast microprocessor and large amounts of dedicated computer memory for proper functioning. Its high threshold for adequate system resources deterred many companies and individuals from upgrading systems from earlier, and perfectly serviceable, systems such as Windows XP (derived from the term Windows Experience). In addition, consumers were baffled by the numerous Vista options—Home (Basic or Premium), Ultimate, Business, and others—while business users (Microsoft’s core market) balked at its major change to the user interface and were unwilling to port their internal applications to the new system.

Microsoft’s corporate users had other reasons to stick with Windows XP. Though still problematic compared with other operating systems, XP was significantly more secure than its predecessors. XP was also faster and much more stable than Windows 95 or 98, and it ran tens of thousands of software programs written specifically for it, which made business users reluctant to switch operating systems. It can be argued that customer satisfaction with XP is what killed Vista among business users. PC makers, who were contractually required by Microsoft to ship products with Vista, were compelled to offer “downgrades” from Vista to XP, and user appreciation even compelled Microsoft to extend its official support of the older OS through 2014, three years beyond its normal support policies.

Adding to Microsoft’s OS problems was increased competition in the marketplace. Apple’s Mac OS X, riding on the huge success of the iPhone and iPod consumer products, grew in popularity. Linux, long an operating system for the technically adept, began to appear in more user-friendly versions, such as Ubuntu, and by the end of the first decade of the 21st century, Linux had captured one-third of the growing low-cost netbook market. Yet, despite its problems in the marketplace, Microsoft remained the dominant supplier of operating systems. Windows held a worldwide market share of 86 to 92 percent, depending on the research analysis. With the release in 2009 of Windows 7, the replacement for Vista, to critical praise by reviewers and analysts, Microsoft’s lead remained intact.

Competition with Google

Microsoft’s continued OS dominance and its quick recovery in the “browser wars” did not repeat itself in the search-engine market, where Microsoft’s search engine, Live Search, trailed well behind those of Google Inc., the new industry giant, and Yahoo! Inc., the durable Internet portal site. Microsoft hoped to change the market dynamics with the release in 2009 of Bing, a “decision engine” designed to display more retrieved information in search pages than was typical, thus enabling better-informed decisions concerning what links to follow or, in some cases, displaying enough information to satisfy the original query.

In 2008 Microsoft had offered to buy Yahoo! for $44.6 billion, but this proposal was rejected by Yahoo! However, negotiations between the companies continued, and in 2009 an agreement was reached in which Yahoo! would use Bing for its Web site and would handle premium advertisements for Microsoft’s Web site—an arrangement scheduled to last 10 years. Microsoft followed up the agreement with Yahoo! by licensing search content from Wolfram Research, makers of the Mathematica-powered WolframAlpha scientific search engine.

On another front in its competition with Google, Microsoft moved into cloud computing, where application software and data storage are provided by centralized Internet services and are simply accessed by users through their local PCs. Microsoft’s first move was with its Windows Azure platform, announced in 2008. Azure lets service providers or businesses build computing infrastructure in the “cloud” and then offer the infrastructure as services to users. In 2011 Microsoft released Office 365, a cloud version of its highly profitable Office business software suite (comprising Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote) that included services and features similar to those of Google Docs.

In 2011 Microsoft bought the Internet voice communication company Skype for $8.5 billion, which at that time was the largest acquisition in Microsoft’s history. Microsoft planned to add Skype to Xbox, Outlook, and Windows smartphones. The Skype acquisition placed Microsoft in competition with Apple’s video-chat service Facetime and Google’s Internet communication service Voice.

Microsoft after Bill Gates

In 2000 company cofounder Gates relinquished his role as CEO of Microsoft to Steve Ballmer, whom Gates had met during his brief tenure at Harvard University in the 1970s. He handed over the title of chief software architect in 2006 to Ray Ozzie, a chief developer of the computer networking package Lotus Notes in the 1990s. In 2008 Gates left the day-to-day running of the company to Ballmer, Ozzie, and other managers, though he remained as chairman of the board. Ozzie stepped down in 2010, and longtime Microsoft executive Satya Nadella replaced Ballmer as CEO in 2014.

There was some concern (and some hopefulness) among industry observers that the departure of Gates would hamper Microsoft’s preeminent position in the computer industry. That situation did not materialize. The company retained its top spot in both business and consumer segments, including operating systems, productivity software, and online gaming services. It also had competitive products in almost all areas of business information technology and applications. Microsoft’s core strengths and most of its profits were to be found on its business side, where it set global standards with its products. Nevertheless, Microsoft’s management understood that the company also had to have a major, even if not a dominant, presence in consumer markets as improvements in information technology continued to blur the line between personal computing and business computing.

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The Microsoft Corporation, an American computer firm, is the world’s leading developer of personal-computer software systems and applications. The company also makes electronic game systems, mobile-phone software, portable media players, and computer hardware such as keyboards and mice; offers e-mail services; and publishes books and multimedia titles. Its main research and development center is located at its corporate headquarters in Redmond, Wash. The company also has additional research laboratories in several countries and sales offices around the globe.